1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally in the field of electrical circuits and systems. More specifically, the present invention is in the field of power regulation circuits and systems.
2. Background Art
There are numerous compelling factors motivating a transition away from the use of fossil fuel reserves as a primary source of commercial energy. Factors such as potential exhaustion of the fossil fuel reserves themselves, the fact that those reserves are non-renewable on human timescales, and the adverse impacts on the environment associated with their extraction, refinement, and conversion to usable energy forms, for example, have cast renewable energy sources in an attractive light.
Despite the serious disadvantages accruing from their use, however, fossil fuels have been a reliable and abundant source of the energy that is critical to sustained economic growth. In order for renewable “green” energy sources such as solar power, wind energy, and geothermal energy, for instance, to successfully supplant, or even to substantially reduce the use of fossil fuel energy sources, those green energy sources must become more efficient and must more reliably provide energy on an “on demand” basis than has historically been the case.
Solar power, for example, is a potentially attractive energy source due to the predictable behavior of its source. Conventional approaches to harnessing solar energy have typically implemented arrays of photovoltaic (PV) panels, connected in series, in combination with an electrical inverter configured to convert the collected solar energy to commercially useful alternating current (AC) for transmission by a conventional power line. Unfortunately, that approach tends to limit the performance of the array as a whole, such as its maximum power point performance, for example, to the performance of the least efficient and weakest of its constituent PV panels.
A more recent conventional solution, sometimes aspirationally characterized as “power optimization,” provides each PV panel with its own inverter and maximum power point tracking (MPPT) circuitry. That approach is theoretically capable of improving the collective performance of an array of PV panels through an in principle optimization of the performance of each panel. However, this approach is likely to be less than successful in optimizing power output as speculated, because it treats each PV panel as a monolithic and isolated element within a solar energy collection system.
Thus, there is a need to overcome the drawbacks and deficiencies in the art by providing a smart PV panel configured to adjust its performance in response to environmental and state conditions so as to enable enhanced energy harvesting from a PV panel array, such as a solar energy collection array.